The Orange Blanket
by jewelsbyers
Summary: A story of love, loss and life during the Great War and how an orange blanket connected two lovers across countries and between worlds.


_**A/N: **__Wow! It's been a long time without a new story! Ok, so, here I am delving into the world of AH Historical Fan-Fiction. Hopefully you all enjoy this, I definitely had fun writing it! If you want a detailed summary, as always, check out my profile, one will be there. WARNINGS: War violence, grief and smoking by overage characters. As always, Stephanie Meyer owns Twilight, if I owned Twilight, Edward and Bella, not James and Victoria, would be so dead by now! Anyway, enjoy!_

**The Orange Blanket**

It was the bitter cold in his feet that woke Private James Witherdale, 5th Division of the 15th Brigade, Norfolk Regiment, British Army, on the morning of the 8th of January, 1916. As he stood, he could hear only the silence. It taunted his ear drums like the devil's laughter. He hated moments like these - the silent moments. He hated them because they were all a lie, it was never silent here. At any moment the silence would be broken by the eerie whistle of a shell or the vicious rattle of machine gun fire. 

He preferred those moments, terrifying as they were. At least they were the reality of what he was facing.

But, as much as he hated the silence, these were the times when he could breathe - when he could remember, when he could see. 

He could see her as she stood at the dock to bid him farewell as he took the boat out. Her long auburn hair blowing all about her face in the high wind. A few of the older ladies gave her scandalous looks, horrified that she would be out in public without a hat and muttering about the lack of morals of 'young people today'. 

He could remember her caressing his face, her fingers gliding over the rough stubble of his cheek. "Who'll remind you to shave when I'm not there?" she'd whispered and, despite the fuss and noise of the dock he'd heard her plain as day. He'd told her that he would manage and she'd impulsively kissed him. The ladies who had been shocked by her hatless state had probably all had strokes. The pair hadn't noticed. 

She'd broken the kiss, throwing her arms around him and they had held each other for those never ending seconds before he'd boarded the ship. In those moments he'd whispered those fateful words in her ear, "I'll be home by Christmas". 

Christmas. What did Christmas have to do with anything anymore? What did it mean? It meant nothing. Not out here, in this barren, mud-filled hole somewhere in France. 

He continued to think of her. They wrote regularly to each other; she didn't mention any of the trivial occurrences back home and he didn't say anything about the war. He put into the letters what he would say to her if she were with him now. Many of them were mere notes, simply expressing his love for her and nothing else. 

_Dearest love,  
_

_If only I could put all my love and affection for you into this note. As it is, all I can write is not even a tenth of what I feel.  
_

_With all the love and affection I can put on paper,  
_

_James.  
_

He received similar notes back from her. 

_My darling James,  
_

_Thank you for your letter. It warms my heart to know that you remember me. I hope this gift will help warm you in France.  
_

_With all the love that cannot stay locked in my heart,  
_

_Victoria.  
_

Her gift had been a vibrant orange blanket, the same shade as her hair, which she'd made herself. James wrapped it around himself on the frozen nights. Sometimes he shared it with his comrades. Sometimes he kept it to himself entirely. It still smelled of her; he pressed his nose into it sometimes and imagined that she was there beside him. 

_"One more push, James. Once more, for me, for me..."  
_

He would hear her voice in his head. Her voice gave him the strength to carry on. 

Some of the men in his company received long, detailed letters from their families, wives and lovers at home. James didn't receive letters like that from Victoria, but he didn't want them. Their notes and declarations of love were more important than what was going on at home. He really didn't want to know. One man in James' company, a tall, strapping Frenchman named Laurent Da Revin, once received a ten page letter from his Russian fiancée Irina. He'd spent one afternoon before a push simply tracing her words with his fingers. As if, through them, he could touch her. 

James didn't like Laurent. He saw the man as a coward, the kind of man who would be just as happy to stay safely in the trenches while his comrades were shot to bits. 

But, then again, who wouldn't? 

James wouldn't pretend; given the choice he would stay safely with his head down, preferring to give covering fire rather than rushing forward across the no-man's land. Once a man was over the top he was fair game for German machine guns. 

James, and indeed, the majority of men freezing to death in the trenches of France, couldn't understand why the commanders of the army back in England had rejected the proposal of machine guns. The Germans had them and the damn things were reputed to be able to fire off 400-600 small calibre rounds per minute! If the Hun had them and could use them well, then surely the civilized British army would be able to use them twice as well! Or, those were James' thoughts anyway. 

But, of course, the commanders-in-chief of the army weren't the ones out here freezing their balls off, James thought bitterly. They were back in England, sitting in the smoking rooms of their big mansions with mugs of ale and toasting 'those brave boys' out on the front. 

James spat in disgust at the thought of the commanders-in-chief. What would they know about 'the front'? Nothing! 

Damn them! He thought viciously. Damn them to the deepest, darkest, hottest pits of hell! 

"Cigarette, James?" a voice asked and James turned to stare in wonder and disbelief as Private Edward Cullen offered him a puff on the much sought after commodity. 

"Yes please," James said and Edward handed him the cigarette. James took several puffs on it before handing it back. The two soldiers took turns smoking the precious cigarette until it was all but a nub and Edward threw it into the mud. 

James took a deep inhale. "Where'd you get your damned hands on a cigarette, Ed?" 

"Begged it off Major Whitlock," Edward replied, referring to the officer that most of the soldiers liked because he had a tendency to spend time fighting as one of them rather than just hiding out in the officers's quarters. 

"As if you'd have to beg Major Whitlock for anything." James said, punching Edward playfully on the arm and Edward grinned. 

"That's true, James. That's true. But it was kind of him to give it to me." 

"Kind of you to let me share it," James told him. "Any particular reason?" 

Edward's eyes wandered away from James' and the Englishman felt ice grip his insides. 

"I'll be honest with you, James," Edward told him, fixing his comrade with a grave stare. "When Major Whitlock handed me the cigarette he told me to find someone from the 5th Division. You're heading over the top, friend" 

James nodded, refusing to let his terror get the better of him. 

"Did Major Whitlock say when?" James asked and Edward shook his head. 

"More than his job was worth to tell me, he said he'd argued against it but Colonel Evenson said that as sure as his wife's name is Esme, the 5th were going over the top to deal with the Hun". Edward sounded half relieved that it wasn't his regiment going over the top and half terrified beyond anything he'd ever felt that his friend was going over. 

Edward's brother, Private Emmett Cullen, had already died in a push towards the German trenches earlier that month. Emmett had been the kind of man who could find a joke in anything and everything; a jester in giant's clothing. But that hadn't saved him from the deadly power of the German machine gun. 

James clapped Edward on the shoulder and the two friends looked at each other for a moment. It was James who broke the silence. 

"Would you do something for me, Edward?" 

"Anything" 

It was snowing on the 8th of January, 1919 when Edward Cullen, former Private in the 4th Division of the 15th Brigade, Norfolk Regiment, British Army, knocked on the door of 24 Northgate Drive. Under his arm was a parcel wrapped in brown paper that he had been acutely aware of since he'd got on the train earlier that day. 

Every time Edward looked down at the parcel he could see James' face as he'd given him all the things that James had wanted taken to a woman named Victoria Sutherland. He'd written her address on Edward's hand so that he wouldn't forget. But Edward had never forgotten. The parcel seemed as heavy as a thousand pounds of lead. It was the sorry story of a man who, like so many others in the pointless war that was - finally - over, had died before he'd even lived. 

The bronze haired young man knocked and the door was opened by a woman with mouse brown hair wearing a maid's uniform. 

"Hello," Edward said to her. "I'm looking for Miss Victoria Sutherland" 

"Come in, sir," she said and Edward stepped into the hallway. 

"May I take you coat, sir?" the maid asked and Edward nodded. "Thank you" 

"No need to thank me, sir," she said. "Mrs. Sutherland pays me to open the doors and take people's coats" 

Edward, very tactfully, didn't answer. 

"Please follow me into the sitting room" the woman said, gesturing for Edward to follow her. They walked down a passage way and into a rather cozy looking sitting room. A fire was crackling merrily in the hearth; the chairs were covered in velvet and overstuffed cushions had been thrown haphazardly across them. A throw rug was draped over a chaise-lounge by a large bay window. The rug had been thrown in such a way that Edward was sure whoever had been sitting in that chair had vacated it very recently. 

He went to look out the bay window and decided that the chaise-lounge was in an excellent position. The window commanded a wide view of the street before it; the iced houses and crystallized street lamps giving Northgate Drive the look of a land that could not be found outside a child's story book. 

"If sir would like to take a seat," the maid said, gesturing to a chair beside the fire. "I'll go and see if Miss Sutherland will receive you." 

Edward was about to sit down when he heard the maid's last words. He straightened up and said, "Why wouldn't she?" 

"Since Mr. Witherdale died over in Europe Miss Sutherland doesn't receive many visitors. Usually, only extended family and the Witherdales. Mrs. Sutherland tried to encourage her to see more people, but she refuses. I forgot to ask you, sir, who shall I tell Miss Sutherland is calling?" 

"Edward," he told the maid, "Edward Cullen. I have some things for her that James asked me to give her." 

The maid looked stunned. 

"Take a seat, Mr. Cullen," she said, "I'm sure Miss Sutherland will be right with you" 

Edward sat down in the chair, gripping the parcel tightly in his hands. He'd considered posting it to her, but everything about it demanded that he give it to Victoria Sutherland in person. To give himself time to think, he glanced up at the mantel piece. 

James stared back at him, his arm protectively around a woman with sparkling eyes and a very open smile. The pair looked so happy together, the woman leaning her head on James' chest while James, with his arms around her shoulders, played with a lock of her hair. 

There were other photos too, photos of James and the woman who Edward assumed was Victoria Sutherland and photos of other people who Edward didn't know. But it was James and the woman who dominated the mantel piece. 

The maid came back in and Edward stood up to greet the mysterious Victoria Sutherland. 

He'd never been able to picture her in his head, and it had always felt disrespectful to try. He had tried a few times, but, every time he'd begun to imagine her, he'd stopped. He'd felt like he was intruding on another man's memories. 

But, had Edward been able to imagine her, he would never have pictured her like this. 

Her face was gaunt and hollow, her green eyes haunted with grief. She was dressed entirely in the black of mourning and, underneath the pale pallor of all who lived in this sunless country, she appeared as white as death. But it was her hair that made her noticeable. 

Unlike the rest of her, she had obviously continued to take good care of her hair since James had died. Grief had not yet left the flaming red locks lacklustre or destroyed their bounce. Victoria Sutherland's hair looked more alive than she did. 

"Mr. Edward Cullen to see you, Miss Sutherland," the maid said. "Says he's got some things from Mr. Witherdale to give to you." 

"Thank you, Charlotte," Victoria said and Edward detected the slightest hint of an Irish accent in her voice. "You may leave." 

Charlotte nodded, dropped a brief curtsy and left the room, closing the door firmly behind her. 

Edward didn't know what to say for a moment. He'd planned this moment for almost three years, and now that it was time he didn't know what to do. 

Victoria sat and Edward sat too. The pair watched each other and, eventually, it was Victoria who broke the silence. 

"You knew James?" she said, watching Edward closely through her haunted green eyes. 

Edward nodded, "I would go so far as to say he was my closest friend, Miss Sutherland" 

"You have something for me?" she asked him and Edward nodded again. 

"Before he went over the top on a push he gave these things to me and told me that, come hell, high water or a German invasion, I was not to die because he needed me to give these to you". 

He held the parcel wrapped in brown paper out to her and she took in gingerly, as if it were fragile. 

"There's nothing breakable in there", Edward hastened to assure her and Victoria looked up at him. Edward saw a spark of life light her green eyes for a moment and he saw, underneath the black of mourning and the shell of grief, Victoria Sutherland was still an attractive woman. Not that he entertained thoughts of her; he had recently become engaged himself to Miss Isabella Swan, the daughter of a local law enforcement officer. He hadn't told Bella he was coming here, she wanted him to forget the war, but he had to do this. This one was for James. 

"Of course there is something breakable in here," she told him. "His soul rests within this wrapping, Mr. Cullen. I can feel it." 

Edward made no reply and Victoria made no move to unwrap the parcel. 

"Tell me how James really died," she said to him quietly, "I don't believe the colonel's rubbish about how he 'felt no pain and died one of the bravest men in the regiment.'" 

Edward nodded. "Colonel Evenson is a lying bastard most of the time. But, I can tell you that James died a brave man, damning the Hun to hell and beyond. He..." 

"Did he die in pain?" 

Victoria's question was blunt, to the point. She demanded the truth and Edward saw no alternative but to give it to her. 

"He was hit by German machine gun fire while he and his regiment were crossing no-man's land. As to whether he died in pain I cannot say, but I can say that he fell and didn't die instantly. We all heard him cursing from the trench" 

"What did he say?" 

"He damned the Hun to hell and back," Edward told her with a hint of pride for his fallen friend. "Said he would dance with them in the devils arms when they met again." 

The ghost of a smile flitted across Victoria's face. "That sounds like my James." 

"He was a great man, Miss Sutherland. I feel privileged to have known him, even for only a short time." Edward told her with the conviction of a man swearing an oath on the name of his God. 

"Thank you, Mr. Cullen," Victoria said. "Charlotte will show you out, I would like to be alone when I open this parcel." 

"Of course, Miss Sutherland." Edward stood and bowed politely to her. "Thank you for receiving me." 

Victoria rang a small hand bell and the maid, Charlotte, came to escort Edward to the door. 

"Please close to door behind you, Charlotte." Victoria called. "And no one is to enter, I would like some privacy." 

"Yes, Miss Sutherland," Charlotte said and she closed the door behind herself and Edward. 

As soon as she was alone Victoria gently peeled the wrapping from around the parcel and gazed at the contents within it. In truth, there wasn't much in it. A bundle of letters tied together with string, each one addressed to her and bearing his handwriting, a tattered diary that would hold his personal reflections of the war and... 

_The orange blanket.  
_

Victoria stared at the thing that she'd made for him while he was in France. She'd made it in the hope that it would remind him of her and that it would keep him warm during his long, lonely nights in France. 

She lifted the blanket from the parcel, the letters and the diary tumbled to the floor, and pressed the fabric to her nose. It smelled of him. 

"Oh, James!" 

Victoria swooned, one hand clutching desperately at the final reminder of her lost love and the other groping desperately for the curtains on either side of the bay window. 

Charlotte had just handed Edward his coat and opened the door to the snowy street outside when they both heard the thump in the sitting room and the terrible cry of a grief-stricken woman who had lost everything.  
|

"Good day, Mr. Cullen," Charlotte said, chivvying Edward out the door before rushing to attend to her young mistress. 

Edward Cullen stared at the closed door and nodded once. It was done, his task was complete. He began to walk down the street, not once looking back at the house where James' lover would live out her days in lonesome grief. He had a train to catch and a woman waiting for him at the end of the line. 

Late that night, in the comfort of her room, Victoria Sutherland read by candle light. The Orange Blanket was wrapped around her the same way she imagined James had wrapped it around himself in the muddy trenches of France. 

_My dearest Victoria,  
_

_If you're reading this letter it means that I did not survive the push across no man's land in 1916. I will be honest and say I never truly believed I would, but part of me hoped, perhaps foolishly, that I would survive. In fact, I will honestly tell you that I hoped to be injured so I could be sent home to you. But, if you are reading this, then my hope - I knew it was vain! - will have come to naught.  
_

_Darling, I know you will grieve for me, that is only to be expected. But promise me that, one day, you will throw off the black garb of mourning and go and see the sun again. Think of me every time you feel the sun on your face.  
_

_If you ever meet another man who makes you smile, laugh and cares for you, then please, don't let my memory hold you back. Go and be happy with him, I don't want you to linger like an aged widow waiting to join her husband in death. You are young, and vibrant, and strong. I have loved that in you, someday - perhaps - someone else will love you for those qualities.  
_

_I also want to thank you for the blanket. Despite my commanding officer's statement that it made me look like a target I have never felt safer than I did while wrapped in the orange blanket. It still held your scent and sometimes I would just hold it to my nose, breathe in and think of you.  
_

_You always were, and still will be, everything to me, Victoria. I will watch over you for the rest of your life, until you come to join me in heaven. For the sake of your family, I beg you not to join me too soon. They need you, Victoria, and I'll never be far from you. Just think of me and I will be near.  
_

_'Death is nothing at all - I have but only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in that easy way that you always do. Wear no a forced air of sorrow.  
_

_'Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without the ghost of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant...There is absolutely an unbroken continuity.  
_

_'What is death but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind just because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you dear Victoria - for an interval-somewhere near perhaps just around the next corner. All is well my love. All is well.'  
_

_Yours always, affectionately, forever, until we meet again and with all my love,  
_

_James.  
_

Victoria read the poem at the end of his letter three times before she put it on her bedside table and wrapped the orange blanket even tighter around herself. She lay down on her bed and blew out her candle, plunging her room into darkness. 

She wept. She wept for her lost love, for the life they would never have. She wept for men like Edward Cullen who would be forever haunted by the events they had witnessed in the war. She wept for the lie in the poem James had copied onto the bottom of his letter for all _was not_ well. She wept for the Witherdales, who had lost their only son. She wept for her family, who had lost their future son-in-law. Finally, she wept for herself. Despite his words, begging her to be open to love if it came for her again, she knew it would never be. Victoria Sutherland cried herself to sleep. 

She dreamed. In her dream she walked along a beach with James. They were holding hands; in James' free hand he carried a gun and on her free hand she wore a black glove. 

They didn't say anything to each other, they simply walked and, in the end, it was James who broke the eerie silence. 

"It was all so pointless." 

"What was pointless, my love?" she asked him and he shook his head, his free hand tight around the gun and gestured to a range of towering cliffs that she was sure hadn't been there at the beginning of her dream. She could see flashes of light and hear the sound of explosions and the cries of men and she gripped James' hand all the tighter. 

"That!" He told her quietly. "That was pointless. So much pointless death. My pointless death". 

"You can't leave me, James!" She begged him and he lifted her hands to his lips and brushed a kiss across it. 

"I'm not far," he told her. "I'm in the blanket." 

He ran his fingers through her hair and down the side of her face as she closed her eyes, savouring the feel of his hands on her skin. 

When she opened them again, she stared at the ceiling of her room in Norfolk. There was no James. 

And yet... as she moved and curled up further under the orange blanket she could still fell his fingers tailing softly down her face.

_**A/N: **__Well? What did you all think? I have to thank Littlevic and mycrookedsmile from Project Team Beta for beta'ing this for me. I had no idea I made so many grammatical errors until they pointed them out! Now, review and tell me whether you liked it or not. As always, __constructive__ criticism is welcome. _


End file.
